Olly Townsend takes us on a tour of this epic northern landscape.

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY OLLY TOWNSEND

CLASSIC RIDE

“That was where I nearly met my maker,” said Mike. I craned my neck to try to see where the trail went next. It looked like the perfect ribbon of handlebar-width singletrack, but a short distance in front of us it dipped steeply away and went around a 90° left-hand bend. The drop-off to the right-hand side, although not completely vertical, was steep enough that if you misjudged the corner, or got pinged off line by an errant rock, the consequences could involve a short fiight, followed by a much longer fiight in a large yellow whirlybird.

The view in front of us was stunning. Late afternoon sunshine was lighting up the wide glaciated valley, a vaguely discernible singletrack running down the left-hand side, weaving in and out of small interlocking spurs. It was like looking into a photograph in a dusty physical geography textbook. But although the view was textbook, actually riding the trail would prove to be somewhat more off-piste.

I’ve known Mike for around a decade and he’s one of the most competent and bombproof riders I’ve ever met. He’s a professional mountain bike skills instructor and pays his mortgage by teaching people how to conquer their demons and ride smoothly and safely down trails that initially scare the hell out of them. So, for Mike to be nervous about riding a route was a new experience for me. With no prior knowledge of the trail, I was relying on Mike and Phil, local resident and co-owner of the nearby Yorkshire Cycle Hub, to give me a heads-up as to what I was about to let myself in for.

When I looked at their big travel enduro bikes with dropper posts and huge disc rotors, and then my lightweight carbon cross-country race bike with ‘90s throwback bar ends and a rigid seatpost, I wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew. Phil knows the trail intimately and said he often rides it at night – which should have inspired confidence, but then I’d been watching him ride all day and realised that his riding skill set was somewhat better suited to vert singletrack with a monster drop on one side than mine was.